Conveyer for newspapers and the like.



1|. L COWLEY. CONVEYER FOR NEWSPAPERS AND THE LIKE.

APPLICATION FILED MAY 1. I916.

PREss iiwuenmfl I Lia/7165 Z7 Con/1%.

Patented Dec, 4, 1912..

2 %%W .WW W H HMWMW$H JAMES T. cowLEY, or MIn'o MASSACHUSETTS, assrenon To THE LAMSON COMPANY, OF noSToN, MASSACHUSETTS, a CORPORATION on NEW JERSEY.

CONVEYER F0331 NEWSPAPERS AND THE LIKE.

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To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, JAMES T. COWLEY,

a citizen of the United States, residing at Minot, in the county ofPlymouth and State 5 of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful lmprovementslin Conveyers for Newspapersand the like, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to conveyers for newspapers and the like and has for one of its objects the substantial elimination of all tendency of the apparatus to smear or smudge freshly printed matter.

Another object of the invention is to so construct the flexible article carrying elements of the mechanism as to largely obviate the trouble arising from breakage of such elements when the apparatus is in .use, by the exercise of moderately careful Supervision thereof; the fieXible elements being themselves caused to give warning of impending rupture' thereof rather than to let go, so to speak, without any signs of impending trouble.

Another object of my invention is to so constitute said elements that they may make contact with the freshly printed articles at a plurality of spaced points along their length, where operatively engaged with such articles, and maintain such contact at said points during the transmission of each given article without change occurring in the spacing of said points with respect to each other; said elements being substantially inelastic in the direction of their length and preferably having sufficient tensile strength to permit of their use to themselves drive the various guiding pulleys over which they pass.

These and other objects of my invention will be hereinafter referred to and the novel means and combinations of elements whereby said objects may be attained will be more particularly pointed out in the claims apot pended hereto.

Tn the accompanying drawing which forms a part hereof and in which like reference characters designate like parts throughout the several views, I have exemplified a preferred embodiment of my invention; but as I am aware of various changes and modifications which may be made thereinv without departing from the Spirit of said invention, I desire to be limot ited only by the scope of said claims.

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Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented et. a, rear.

Application filed May 1, 1916. serial No. 94,567.

Referring to said drawing:

Figure 1 is a sideelevatlon of a news paper conveyer.

Fig. 2 is a top view of the same, drawn to an enlarged scale. t0

Fig. 3 is a front elevation of the lower portion of aid conveyer.

Fig. 4 is an enlarged front detail view of the take up mechanism in said conveyer.

Fig. 5 is a fragment of a preferred type of flexible element which constitutes one of the article engaging and supporting devices of said conveyer.

lgig. 6 is a similar View of a modification; an I Fig. 7 is a detail section taken on line VTTV][I of Fig. 3.-

The conveyer shown is adapted for usev as an elevator or as a lowerator, depending upon the direction in which the flexible elements are driven; but for convenience of description it will be considered as an elevator and arrows have been applied to indicate the direction of travel of certain of the parts.

The uprights 1 support staggered rolls 2 between which the opposed articlesupporting portions of the flexible elements 3-3 travel; this staggered arrangement of pressure rolls being of course known.

The elements 3 in the construction shown are siX in number, and extend around pul-. leys or sheaves 4 at the top of the elevator and downwardly in parallelism toward and around the idler pulleys 5 upon the rear till side of the tensioning device, thence u and around the idlers 6 upon aid side 0 said device, and then down and around the lower pulleys 7, whence they return upwardly again to the pulleys 4.

Similarly, the elements 3, of which there are also six, as shown in Fig. 3, pass downwardly from pulleys 8, around idlers 5 and 6 upon the left-hand ide of the conveyer shown in Fig. 1, and thence around pulleys ice 9 and back to the upper front pulleys 8.

The tensioning devicecomprises a series of spring drums 10, one for each flexible element 33', aid drums being mounted in brackets 11 and each having a rope or cord W 12 which tends to draw the corresponding slide-bracket 13 of an idler 5, down toward its drum. This obviously places the corresponding element 3 or 3, as the case may be, under a determined tension.

The rolls 2 arepreferably grooved, as at 2', for the reception of the elements 33 and are frictionally driven directly by the latter when the apparatus .is in operation.

To this end the elements 3-3 are made of materials sufiiciently strong to substantially oppose elongation thereof when thus driv-' the direction of thelength of saidelements where in engagement with said newspapers, than is the case with elastic cords or elts of any description,

Now as to the preferred construction of the article-carrying elements 3.3.' As

- shownin Fig. 5, said elements comprise a substantially inextensible core or cord 3 of cotton cable or the like. Closely wound,

braided or otherwise fastened to the exterior' of this core is a covering or partial covering of material which does not tend to absorb ink. This material may be treated fiber or the like or it may be metal,-either wound tightly on as shown in Fig. 5, or braided on as per Fig; 6. It further is preferably so formed or mounted on its core as to present to the freshly printed newspapers or the like a series of contact points rather than an unbroken surface, so that when contactis made, even if the ink of a letter be slightly wiped, the letter as a whole is still legible. In one way the braided wire or fiber formation is perhaps the best for this reason, but as the wire-wrapped cord shown in'Fig. 5 is substantially as good and can 'be manufactured by simple mechanism, it is to be preferred.

In any case however, it is most desirable that the distances between the adjacent points of contact of the flexible wire- 'wrapped cable or the like and a freshly .printed newspaper, be maintained so long as the paper is being supported at these points; since if the cord were elastic and the points could hence separate from and approach each other as they happened, for example, to pass a guiding pulley, then the freshly printed matter would be apt to be streaked at such places, which of course tends to spoil the appearance of the sheet.

On the other hand, if the cord 3 alone were to be used, it would tend to soak up the moist ink and smear or smudge the papers delivered to it thereafter.

The preferably composite paper gripping elements embodied in my newspaper conveyer, however, permit of the presentation to the freshly printed papers to be conveyed, of'surfaces which are impervious to the wet ink, being non-absorbent in character and moreover very limited in extent, while these small contacting surfaces or points remain at substantially fixed distances apart.

The preferred covering or wrapping for the core is soft, Swedish iron wire, whereby is obtained an exceedingly flexible structure which passes freely and durably about pulleys even as small as three inches in diameter. In Fig. 5, two strands 3 are wrapped onto the core 3, while in Fig. 6 the covering 3 is braided on.

The papers coming from the printingpress 14 travel in overlapped relationship upon the narrow belts 15, of which there are four in the construction shown. These belts pass around pulleys 16, mounted on a-common shaft 17, which also carries the pulleys which pass short angle belts 19.

These latter extend from their respective pulleys 18 to idlers 20, thence to idlers 21, and back to pulleys 18, which drive said angle belts. These angle belts receive the papers from the belts 15 and turn them up toward the ascending sides of the elements 3 preparatory to their reception between said sides andthe corresponding ascending portions of the elements 3. 4

At the top of the elevator, a set of short angle belts 22, which pass around pulleys 23 and 24, co-act with a set of belts 25, which ass around pulleys 26, tensioning idlers 2 and preferably. fixed idlers 28, to

divert the ascending overlapped papers toward the left, as viewed in Fig. 1, and thence obliquely upwardly toward and aropnd the pulleys 23 for delivery to the horizontally traveling belts 29.

The upper and lower horizontal belts 29 and 15 are supported by rollers 30 carried by the usual side boards 3131, respectively; and the belts 15 may drive all of the others. To this end I prefer to provide fiber strips 32 in the bottoms of the grooves 33 of the pulleys 9, 7, etc., on which ride theelements 33'; as shown in Fig. 7 wherein one of the pulleys 9 is partly broken away to illustrate this feature. To insure that the elements 3 shall travel with the same linear velocity as the opposed elements 3, I prefer to provide meshed gears 34 and 35, of the same pitch diameters, upon neeaeaa it rides out on the upper horizontal belts 29 from under the angle bolts 25. which maintain the overlapped arrangement and thereby what is termed the count of the papers,-the belts or elements between which such paper is successively gripped are at all times moving with substantially the same velocity, and what is more, owing to the inelasticity of the elements 33, all parts of said elements are at all times moving with substantially equal velocity; there being no stretching or opening up of said elements as the overlapped and'sometimes quite thick masses of papers pass the successive rolls 2, with consequent ink-streaking tendency.

Finally, it maybe pointed out that the novel tensioning device shown in Figs. 1 and 4 is especially well adapted to maintain a uniform tension in the respective elements 3-3. Herein, the brackets or frames 13 are slidably mounted on rods 42 which extend between transverse bars or plates 43, attached to the uprights'l in any suitable manner, and each of these frames 13 moves independently of the others to maintain the corresponding flexible element under the tension desired. Especially where the flexible elements are quite long is such a tensioning device to be preferred to the more commonly used weights, since the inertia of the latter tends to render them sluggish in taking up abrupt or vibratory like changes in tension, whereas in the present device the tension in the individual elements is at all times practically constant.

In conclusion, I desire to point out a further advantage which the elements 33 possess over known devices which have heretofore been used in newspaper conveyors;-

to wit, the warning given by such an element, after it has been in use a long time, that rupture thereof is imminent. If one of the paper engaging strands 3", for example, of a given element breaks, the device as a whole is not likely to give way all at once, but rather the remaining strand or strands and also the core will hold. The broken ends of the wire or the like will be very apt to be observed in ample time to permit of a simple repair being made which necessitates but a short stoppage of the apparatus. 0n the other hand, letus assume that after the device has been in use a long while, the core breaks at some point. Here, the strands will simply unravel or pull. out and the break will become apparent, and yet the broken ends are held near together and the element as a whole will not'jump free of its pulleys to the detriment of the papers being conveyed or to perhaps cause the ruptured cable or the like to snarl up with the uninjured cables. The non-resilient soft iron wire or the like of which the strands 3 are preferably composed, in a case such as that last described is greatly to be preferred to, for example, spring or resilient wire, since the inelastic strands even when merely wrapped on to the core, tend to cling to the latter and unravel but little therefrom when the core or said strands break, whereas, if the strands be themselves resilient they will, under the circumstances described, tend to spring out travel together under tension and at the same speed from one level to another, to carry said newspapers therebetween in overlapped relationship, means to co-act with said elements to prevent slippage of said newspapers with respect to each other, and means to drive said elements, said elements being of composite construction and comprising strands of flexible material each secured to a flexible core to normally space the latter away from the newspapers in course of conveyance and to frictionally engage said papers at spaced points, the surfaces of said strands being impervious to the wet ink of said papers.

2. In a conveyer for freshly printed newspapers and the like, the combination of a plurality of opposed narrow fiexible'elements paper gripping portions of which travel together under tension and at the same speed from one level to another to carry said newspapers therebetween, means to co-act with said elements to preventslippage of said newspapers during transit, and means to drive said elements, said elements being substantially inextensible and having on all sides thereof paper engaging surfaces which are impervious to the wet ink of said papers and contact with each of the latter only at spaced points, said impervious surfaces being present on all sides of said elements as aforesaid to insure the presentation of proper surfaces to the articles being carried, regardless of any twist or torque in said elements about the longitudinal axes thereof.

3. In a conveyor for freshly printed newspapers and the like, the combination of a plurality of substantially inextensible opposed flexible elements portions of which travel together under tension and at the same speed from one level to another, to carry said newspapers therebetween in overlapped relationship, means to co-act with sald elements to prevent slippage of said newspapers with respect to each other, and means to drive said elements, said elements being of composite construction and comprising strands of inelastic material each secured to a flexible core to normally space the latter away from the newspapers in course of conveyance and to frictionally en- 5 gage said papers at spaced'points, the sur faces of said strands being impervious to the wet ink of said papers.

In testimony whereof I haxe affixed my slgnature, in the presence of two witnesses.

JAMES T. COWLEY.

Witnesses:

IRVING D. DAwEs, R. E. FIsK. 

